Posts Tagged ‘danish pastries’

A couple of months back, my father mentioned the opening of a new cafe at VivoCity. He’d heard about how good it was from his colleagues so he imparted the knowledge to me with much enthusiasm. I made sure to have it checked out during my next visit to VivoCity but I was not impressed by what I saw. There were quite a number of those fake plastic models of the ice creams and desserts they served, and this is something I do not associate with cafes serving good coffees and desserts! I must admit I had judged a book by its cover, but who doesn’t when choices are aplenty but money isn’t?

Then it so happened that my colleagues and I were at VivoCity after an event so we just stopped at St Marc Cafe for a quick break. I ordered a Royal Milk Tea without too much expectations. The drink turned out to be a pleasant surprise! The milk tea was unlike any other milk tea I have ever drunk in my life! It was very thick, had a bit of a caramel flavour and was just extremely delicious in taste. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of it as I didn’t have my DSLR with me that day, but if you ever go to St Marc Cafe, you have to try the Royal Milk Tea! If I’m not wrong it costs $6!

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago, I was kindly invited by Sixth Sense Communications to join in a media tour of the latest highlight at Marina Square : The Dining Edition. The Dining Edition is Marina Square’s new gourmet dining zone and was renovated to a tune of $15m. The 50,000 sq ft area boasts 16 exciting mid-to-upscale restaurants, bistros, café bakeries, patisseries and coffee joints and the eclectic mix is made up of both local and international brand names.

This was when I was reacquainted with St Marc Cafe again! We had the opportunity to try 2 of St Marc Cafe’s best loved items, the Choco Cro as well as the Little Fuji.

I have been in a baking mood ever since I returned from Norway. I have this desperate desire to replicate the lovely croissants I had there, but you know croissants, they aren’t exactly the easiest things to make. I did try once, half-heartedly with numerous short cuts and obtained croissant-shaped stones as a result.

I am heartened to know that 2 French bakeries are opening in Singapore very soon. One is Paul Bakery and the other is Maison Kayser. Maison Kayser is to open by end of November 2011 at the new Scotts Square, while Paul Bakery is slated to open by Christmas 2011 and is located on the 3rd floor of Takashimaya, where the old Coffee Club used to be. It seems like just when I am craving so badly for these French/Danish pastries, out pops all these European bakeries. BreadTalk will have to pull something out of its sleeves if it wants to keep its market share!

Anyway, not being able to bake croissants (for now) doesn’t stop me from baking something else. I was perusing one of my favourite baking blogs and I decided to bake this Earl Grey Chiffon Cake. It turned out pretty okay considering that this is my 1st Chiffon cake. The Earl Grey taste was faint, the cake wasn’t sweet enough, but the texture was light and airy, which is what a Chiffon cake ought to be. There were splotches of white, which meant that I hadn’t incorporated the egg whites in properly. It’s always a difficult decision between wanting to be as as quick as possible so as not to over-deflate the egg whites, and yet having to thoroughly mix them so that there are no detectable clumps of egg white in the cake.

Flush with “success”, I decided to bake a 2nd cake, a Milo Chiffon cake! I got bolder and made some tweaks to the recipe even though everyone knows that for baked goods, recipes have to be followed to a T. I know that, but I just CAN’T! Anyway, I paid the price for omitting the baking powder and putting in more Milo powder than called for. The cake had a distinctive Milo taste, but was denser than the Earl Grey Chiffon cake. In fact, it kind of had the texture of kueh.

The perfectionist in me said, TRY AGAIN. So I did. I baked a Third cake. An Orange and Chocolate Chiffon cake. I dutifully included the Baking Powder again and I whipped the egg whites stiffer than the 2nd try. I even added chocolate chips into the batter although I had this feeling that they would sink to the bottom. True enough, the cake emerged with a chocolaty bottom. Because of that, it was sticky and I had a hard time scraping the cake out of the baking tin. Texture-wise, it was also light and airy, but somewhat crumbly. I have no idea why it is so and I can only think of baking it longer the next time. I liked the taste of this cake the most, and if given the time I would even make an orange syrup to go with it. Ah well, next week then.

Hello everyone! I’m now in Copenhagen! This city feels so much more city like as compared to Oslo. The buildings here remind me of London and Paris. The prices here are much better too. Food is almost half the cost of what it was in Oslo. Can you imagine how much I have been suffering in Norway when it comes to eating out? I hate having to pay S$40 for a burger at some TGI Fridays kind of place where there’s no guarantee that the food will taste excellent. I’ve had to be very strategic about my meals when I was in Oslo, and now I feel like I’ve been let out of jail. For the next 4 days, I can buy what I see and eat what I like, instantly! The only idiotic thing is that coffee is still expensive. It’s the same price as in Oslo, which is like at least S$8 for a latte. ‘

But one thing that Norway did to me is to introduce me to really tasty croissants. My croissant eating repertoire isn’t all that great, but seriously, the best croissants I have eaten in a long time was at my breakfast restaurant Egon in Oslo. The best thing about waking up every morning is that I got to head to the buffet breakfast and have my fill of chocolate croissants. They taste SO GOOD! They aren’t the “airy” kind you find in Singapore where you bite into a large croissant and it flattens into a tiny one. These croissants have body, while remaining flaky, and they aren’t dense. (Special note for my mother: No i didn’t just eat croissants. I ate lots of beetroot, cucumber, organic muesli and oats as well)

I’ll have to see what this new hotel has in store for breakfast tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, enjoy the pictures of the droolsome Danishes. And no, I don’t mean the men.

Holm’s Bager seems to be available at every corner!

Cute! All these chairs facing outwards reminds me of the cafes in France! But no one is sipping a cuppa outside!